I Love Immigrants, Too

The girl with the many names hits the nail on the head with a piece titled “I LOVE IMMIGRANTS”. (Note: Some may find her language offensive. If you are anti-immigration and read her piece you will be seriously offended, but if the shoes seem uncomfortable maybe you’ll consider changing them.) Ms. Passey lived for most of the past year in Costa Rica where she barely knew anybody, didn’t speak the language and didn’t understand how things worked generally. Immigrants coming to America do the same thing and:

Anyone who does that gets TREMENDOUS respect from me. And those who come here do so primarily for two reasons — they want the opportunity to work hard and make a better life for themselves and their families, and/or they want political/social freedoms.

I think people who deliberately choose that life are more true to “American” values than most of the so-called “Americans” who are born here.

Amen. To her list of reasons for loving immigrants I’ll add a few.

Food. Mexican restaurants owned by Mexicans (El Charro,El Vaquero, Nancy’s,Acambaro), Oriental restaurants run by Vietnamese and Cambodians who came here in the 70s, Monett Family Restaurant serving traditional American diner food alongside Greek food and owned by an American born in Greece. An immigrant family, probably illegal, came door to door selling tamales, probably in violation of health codes, that were cheap and delicious. While Americans born here might be willing to debone chickens at the Tyson plant for John McCain’s $50 an hour, they won’t do it for the $9 an hour or so that the Mexican immigrants will. I’ll admit I don’t want to pay the price it would take to get lazy native Americans (those born here, not Indians) to do the filthy, cold, bone numbing job.

Great Customers. They pay cash. For everything from food to houses. They are glad to receive good service instead of being indifferent at best. They work hard for their money and while they don’t squander it they don’t expect anyone else to work for free, giving them something for nothing.

The Interesting Quotient. Immigrants raise the Interesting Quotient of a nation. Perhaps it’s not as important or noticeable in a bigger city, but in southwest Missouri where diversity is a matter of which Indian tribe your great-great grandmother belonged to and which part of Scotland or Ulster the rest of your ancestors came from, a little diversity is a great thing. Fortunately, we don’t need affirmative action, all we need is a willingness to accept people who want to come here and improve our lives as well as their own.

immigration,immigration policy

(Sidenote: I’ve largely dropped the habit of quoting other website authors, especially those in the Must Read list to the right. First, because I figure many of you reading this already read them as well. Second, because I am not logging the web here, though I am using a piece of software often used for that purpose. This site is mostly about my own personal commentary on issues of the day. In this case Ms. Passey echoed my own sentiments in a way that was worth pointing out.)